CALL TO ACTION  — WEAR YOUR YELLOW SHIRTS

We have received the following  information from PFLAG-Georgetown about a July 29 ‘READ IN” event at our Georgetown Library.  If you have some time this Saturday, please attend and wear your Side of Love yellow shirts.  Feel free to invite others.

“You may already be aware that a group called the [ Citizens Defending Freedom ]( https://www.citizensdefendingfreedom.com/ ) is holding a meeting at the Georgetown Library from 9:00 to 11:15am in the Hewlett Room on Saturday morning as part of a national effort on August 5th. (Our own library had no space available on the national date, and so the local group has gone with July 29th.)
The stated purpose of this national effort is to “rescue our children’s future and turn this nation around one library at a time.” They are “calling on all families who love God and love America to gather at our local public libraries to pray, sing, and read books of virtue.”
While this in and of itself may sound positive to you, further investigation of the organization and its backers reveals that it is anti-LGBTQ+. If you scroll through their webpage, you will find a photo of a drag queen story hour with the statement below it: “Protect our children at any cost. We confront indoctrination and unapologetically oppose the sexualization of our children.” These phrases are dog whistles for the far right.
The bottom line is that this organization is at the center of numerous attempts to ban LGBTQ+ books from schools and libraries across the country and they’ve unfortunately decided to come to Central Texas.
PFLAG Georgetown is responding by “leading with love,” as our tagline suggests. We do not wish to confront this organization or create hostilities. But we do want to be visible and to them to know that the community of Georgetown will resist their efforts. So we’ve scheduled our own read-in at the library at the same time this Saturday morning, 9am to 11:30am, in the Friends Room, in the same 2nd floor area that we have our monthly meeting.
Please join us for a morning of fellowship, reading of books by, for, and/or about LGBTQ+ community members, a discussion of the importance for our LGBTQ+ youth of having role models in literature. Wear your favorite Pride attire and come ready to have a good time.
Later today, I’ll set up an event for our private Facebook page
[ https://www.facebook.com/groups/pflaggeorgetown ]( https://www.facebook.com/groups/pflaggeorgetown )
so that you can see the details, who else is going, and get reminders.
Together, we can make a big difference by raising awareness and helping these extremists to see us as people, and not an ideology or threat.

Jo Ivester

PFLAG-Georgetown–

Michelle Augustine